


Impossible as the Stars

by songofsunset



Category: Space Sweepers
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Nanobots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29260050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofsunset/pseuds/songofsunset
Summary: Things work out a little differently, after everything is said and done, for Su-ni especially.
Relationships: Tae-ho & Su-ni
Comments: 23
Kudos: 92





	Impossible as the Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Megaparsec (themerrygentleman)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themerrygentleman/gifts).



> HEY WHAT A GREAT MOVIE YALL
> 
> This is set in the aftermath of the movie, don't ask too many questions, just roll with it

It shouldn’t have worked.

There is no reason for it to have worked.

But then again, there is no reason for a child to be able to bring plants back to life, to cause trees to grow where the ground has been caked with blood and poison for half a century- There is no reason that humans should be able to love so keenly that it reaches through the void of space and death and lets them become more than they ever might have hoped.

So really, is it that hard to believe that through some combination of a father’s love, and a child’s hope and kindness, and a large helping of near-magic nanobot science… the impossible could happen?

\------

Tae-ho is grateful not to be alone, for all he feels a million miles away from everything.

He hadn’t asked his crewmates to come with him. Hadn’t expected them to. He had walked into the main area of the ship, pulling on his shoes- brand new, a gift- and stared at the floor as he muttered something about a call, and a successful retrieval, and it being time for him to head down and… retrieve his daughter. What was left of her after all this time. The last thing he could ever do for her.

A song plays in his head, xylophone and love and-

“Tch, would it have killed you to give a little warning?,” Captain Jang says, cracking her neck and rising to her feet, settling her jacket-

And Bubs glances sharply up from the brochures she is scrolling through, faces and hair and lips arrayed in glowing patterns, and even though Bubs doesn’t have a human face yet, Tae-ho gets the impression of eyes narrowing. “Are these jokers gonna try anything funny? Because if they try anything we can get back at them, you know, we’re hot gossip for at least another week. I’ve already wrangled one sponsorship deal, we’re not nobodies they can just kick around anymore-”

And Tiger Park is there, looming, glowering, gently carrying Kot-nim in his arms. “They will not try anything,” he says, putting Kot-nim down lightly. “They know better.”

And Kot-nim just steps forward and takes Tae-ho’s hand with a trusting smile. Her hand is warm, and small, and Tae-ho swallows, and tries not to listen to a song stuck in his head, all xylophone and silly heartfelt lyrics.

“Okay,” he says, pretending he isn’t blinking tears out of his eyes. “Lets go.”

And so, a short journey later, they sit together in the private clean white room, where so many citizens have been fortunate enough to retrieve their dead.

What “citizen” will mean now, in the aftermath of everything, Tae-ho can’t even begin to guess. He has given two lifetimes of his own to that question- let others grapple with it for the moment, now that there is the hope of a future for some of them to have.

For now, he is surrounded by his closest friends, holding a brave child’s hand for comfort- and a door is opening, to bring him what remains of his family.

\------

The coffin-box is small, when they float it in.

This makes sense, Kot-nim supposes. It’s about the size that would fit her, and Uncle Tae-ho’s daughter had been about her age. So if Kot-nim had ever died and needed one, it would probably be like this.

She had come close, maybe, it sounds like. A lot of things happened, for a while, and Kot-nim knows that people had been very scared, that her father was gone and not coming back, and that he had been scared the same thing would happen to her.

But she is okay.

The nanobots wouldn’t let something like that happen to her, after all.

...so why should it have happened to this girl?

The woman who came in with the box asks Uncle Tae-ho a quiet question, and he squeezes Kot-nim’s hand tightly, then nods.

The top of the box goes away. Inside is a girl, sort of, and Uncle Tae-ho lets out a horrible choked little noise and grips Kot-nim’s hand even harder.

The girl’s hair is longer than Kot-nim’s, probably, though it’s all tangled together. Her plaid shirt seems almost pristine- both grubbiness and pattern faded to ghosts of themselves from too-much space-pure sun, but her skin color is all wrong- the blood vessels having burst, then frozen over, the shapes of the face and hands distorted with decompression and then absolute cold. But she does have a face, and hair, and a body, and someone right here who remembers and mourns her-

And the nanobots whisper to Kot-nim, as Tae-ho shakes with sorrow. As the crew reaches out to clasp his shoulder, whispering tentative words of support, the nanobots are are telling her about echoes, about possibilities, about memories and electric currents and similarities between her and this girl, about things that could be aligned and nudged into place just so, if only one had a willing army of nanobots capable of the impossible-

And so, with the hand that is not being clutched by a sobbing Uncle Tae-ho, Kot-nim reaches right into the coffin-box and takes Su-ni’s withered hand.

And before anyone can even react in horror, Su-ni’s body glows golden, spasming with the complicated repairs needed for a body that has been dead three years, so similar to the one the nanobots call home- cells reforming and blood vessels realigning and a complicated network of electric signals and memory and something else- and Su-ni gasps a great shuddering inhale, and another, and-

“Dad?” she asks, her fingers spasming in Kot-nim’s, her eyes blinking sightlessly at the ceiling. “Daddy?”

“He’s here,” says Kot-nim, pulling Uncle Tae-ho forward, letting him reach for his daughter with trembling hands.   
  
"Su-ni?," he asks, and Kot-nim watches with satisfaction as Su-ni smiles. 

\------  
  
"DID WE KNOW SHE COULD DO THAT-"  
  
"MEDIC! WE NEED A MEDIC-"  
  
"WHAT THE _FU-_ "

\------

All hell breaks loose, of course, but they’re mostly all used to that by now.

It all works out okay in the end.

And Kot-nim is glad to have a sister.

**Author's Note:**

> "hey if we're saying she could bring back this kid who'd been dead for three years why couldn't she also just bring back her dad" MAYBE SHE DOES THAT NEXT!!! Or maybe he was too shot up to be repairable!!!! Maybe the magitech nanobots are helping with my artistic vision which is: Vibes, and also the kiddos both get to live and be besties goddamnit :')


End file.
